Coach K turned Duke into college basketball's biggest brand

By Andy Katz
Special to FOX Sports

Duke was the team to beat.

The top game on every team’s schedule.

For decades.

All because of Coach K.

The Duke brand has transcended for generations.

Multiple blue-blood programs – from UCLA to Kentucky to Indiana to UNLV to Georgetown to North Carolina – had either multiple coaches or a single one who defined their brand.

But no school, no program, has sustained as much success under one coach and become a brand as much as Duke under Mike Krzyzewski, who announced Wednesday that the 2021-22 season would be his final one on the bench in Durham, N.C.

He has a tent village named after him outside Cameron Indoor Stadium. A fan base named the Cameron Crazies that helped define the brand.

All because of Coach K.

His players knew they played for something bigger than themselves. They played for the name on the front of the jersey, not just the name on the back.

Think about this: A college coach resurrected USA Basketball because the top players on the planet wanted to play for him.

Those motivational skills will be as much of his legacy at Duke as his record 1,170 wins (which he will add to in his final season), five national titles, 12 Final Four appearances and three gold medals.

His ability to adapt to multiple generations of players proved to be a guiding principle throughout a career that included 15 ACC Tournament championships and 12 regular-season titles in 41 seasons with the Blue Devils.

He won those five national crowns in three different eras, going from four-year players to the beginning of the one-and-done era to thriving in this current landscape.

His players are unbelievably loyal. They have had success in all walks of life after playing for him.

Coach K has helped elevate the sport from the early 1980s onward. He was a powerful force within the NCAA, continuing to push the organization to change and for the membership to be more player-centric.

He was born out of the Bob Knight-era, playing for The General at Army, and yet Coach K adjusted his style to allow for a freedom of expression that wasn’t the norm during his time playing or early in his career.

The ability to connect to players, young enough to be his own grandchildren, allowed him to sustain success.

This past season was not normal for anyone, let alone Coach K. Cameron Indoor Stadium was quiet. There was no Krzyzewskiville. COVID-19 limited the schedule and contact tracing forced Duke to withdraw from the ACC Tournament due to a positive case.

The season ended without a chance to compete in the NCAA Tournament. There was no guarantee the Blue Devils (13-11, 10th in the ACC) would have been selected and likely wouldn’t have been unless they had advanced deeper in Greensboro, N.C.

So the GOAT in the profession deserved one more time to enjoy what he created at Duke and within the sport.

The decision to announce Krzyzewski would be replaced by Jon Scheyer, the captain of the 2010 national title team, was a must.

Coach K is as interwoven within Duke University as any other coach in the sport. You can’t just extricate him and everything he has done. It had to be a process.

Having a coach-in-waiting has worked for both Purdue (where Matt Painter followed Gene Keady) and Michigan State (where Tom Izzo replaced Jud Heathcote).

Roy Williams decided against one more run at North Carolina before handing it over to assistant Hubert Davis.

Had Williams opted to coach one final season at Carolina, the Tar Heels would have likely agreed to the same deal.

This is the right way to do it for Coach K, for Scheyer, for Duke, for the ACC and for college basketball.

There will be a transition in the sport as there has been in decades prior.

The Duke-Carolina rivalry survived Dean Smith’s retirement, and it will be just fine ultimately beyond Roy and Coach K.

The game is bigger than the coach.

But rebranding the brand of Duke will be a chore for Scheyer. Being the coach who replaces the legend is never easy. But Scheyer will have the endorsement of his Hall of Fame mentor, much like Davis will with Williams.

That wasn’t the case with Knight’s successor at Indiana in Mike Davis.

Having the support of the former head coach who is an iconic figure at the school is paramount to the success of the next coach. Getting the former players on board is also a must. Scheyer will likely have a vote of confidence from the alumni.

Duke was Coach K.

Can Duke still be Duke without him?

That’s to be determined.

His impact on the school, the sport, will be unrivaled in our lifetimes. 

But the time to pass the baton has come for him, Duke and college basketball. 

Andy Katz is a longtime college basketball reporter, analyst and host. He can be seen on FOX Sports and Big Ten Network platforms, as well as March Madness and NCAA.com, and he hosts the podcast "March Madness 365." Katz worked at ESPN for nearly two decades and, prior to that, in newspapers for nine years.